Yesterday's gone

[kellinator]

I found out from Natalia that our old college friend Claire is engaged. I'm happy for her. But I'm also weirded out -- are we really old enough? From my college friends, several are engaged or practically engaged, some are married, one's already divorced. In college, it looked like I would be among the first to get married; now, it's looking like I'll be one of the last.

Things with Joe and me always seemed so perfect -- we were made for each other. We never got bored with each other. But along the way something went wrong.

I'll never forget when I realized I had to end it. It was the summer of 2000, and Natalia and I were living together in Nashville and talking one night, and the talk turned to him. And Natalia was like, "You have to do it." That, combined with Jason's statement that my eyes were totally dead, did it.

Even as I tried to break up with him, I didn't want to do it. I can tell you a million reasons why I did it -- Joe's laziness, his spoiledness, his mother, who I still call "Martha Stewart on crack" behind her back. Scars from mistakes I made that never quite healed, despite both our efforts. Too many parties where he looked on disapprovingly while I downed Tolman 3 Lethal Lemonade. His unwillingness to try new restaurants. How he always had to know everything about my past. The time when I asked him for space and instead he started calling three times a day. The way he thought, and still thinks, a year later, that my world should revolve around him.

I look at all these old photographs, at how we beamed at each other, and ask myself, what happened? Because I know that it's over. I don't want him back; I doubt we could ever get back together. I have moved on, though he seems unwilling or unable to. I just want to figure out what went wrong, and if it was my fault like I think it must have been.

Comments

[salomes-pimp.livejournal.com]

Sometimes two people meet and the chemistry is so perfect. The moon light hits her hair just right. Or the small of his back rests perfectly in your hand. And sometimes, despite everything that seems so right, personality traits -some true, some embedded- get in the way. And you take what you can and move on.
Relationships are hard work. They're a lot of giving and a lot of giving up on taking. On both sides. When you find someone who's willing to give as much as you are, to the point where your foreheads hurt from meeting in the middle so often, you know you're on to something. And sometimes that doesn't happen and it's nobody's fault. It's just not something the two were meant to share. Or ready for.

Sometimes I think Jason and I are like that. Really really good for each other. Totally unready.

Anyway. Don't blame yourself. Don't look for faults. Take what you can from what was once a beautiful thing. Learn what you can about where it went wrong. Don't dwell, but hold that part inside you. Move on.
Isn't that always the best thing to do? (And the hardest?)

Isolation...

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about moving from most likely to get married to the back of the line. Of my friends from freshman year, Jason and Dana married and divorced, Jennifer's married, Elizabeth's married, Whitney's married, and I dunno what happened to Amy and Lori after they both transfered to Knoxville. Last I heard, Val was still unmarried, too, up in Nashville -- but I figure that's been cured by this point.

Sometimes people connect. Sometimes they don't. And sometimes what starts out perfect goes awry, despite our best intentions. Sometimes people grow in opposite directions -- and sometimes it's just lopsided, because one person grows a lot and the other doesn't grow much or at all. From my limited perspective, that's my impression of what happened with you and Joe -- you're not the same person you were coming out of high school, whereas he just might be in most senses.

That doesn't make him a bad guy. Just maybe a bad guy for you.

[sophocles.livejournal.com]

Out of my old high school friends, three have been engaged. Two have actually gotten married. One has even gotten divorced. These are the one's I remember, and are still more or less in contact with.

Not to depress you but yes, we are at "that" age. On a happier note someone once told me if you want to BE married in your thirties don't get married in your twenties.

Of course people like myself would get married grit it out and tortment both myself and my hypothetical wife crazy till we are angst ridden maniacs.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I was married at 22.

I moved out at 23, expecting it would work out.

at 24 we decided it was likely not going to work out after all.

I had been legally married (common law, papers signed so I could get financial aid) once before, when I was 20. (we were a legal common law couple, it was just that you're not common law in Ontario until you declare it, so.)

So of course you're old enough to get engaged, married, etc. Technically, at least.

Frankly, at 30, I'm barely sure that I'm old enough to get married. It's a hell of a lot easier to commit to something like life with one person that you'll love forever and ever when you're 23.